Sunday, September 06, 2015

Math apps your kids will want to play by Jinny Gudmundsen, Special for USA TODAY

"With summer almost over, it's time to fire up your kids' brain cells. One way to ease them into the rigors of school is to introduce some fun math apps." according to Jinny Gudmundsen, Editor ofwww.TechwithKids.com and author of iPad Apps for Kids, a For Dummies book.

These three apps score high on kid-appeal while also imparting solid math training.

In
Twelve a Dozen, kids help the character Twelve to change her face value
to overcome obstacles in the math-based platform-puzzler.(Photo: Bossa Studios)

Bossa Studios Ltd, best for ages 8-14, $3.99, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPadRating: 4 stars (out of 4)Kids
embark on an "add-venture" with Twelve, an adorable character whose
face is a TV screen showing the number 12. Twelve's village of
Dozenopolis has suffered an attack, and she is on a mission to find and
rescue her family. Joining her is a decimal point named Dot and other
numbers she meets along her way.In this platform puzzler, kids
help Twelve to navigate dangerous terrain by controlling where she runs,
when she jumps and how she uses math to eliminate the many obstacles in
her way. Some obstacles can be eradicated by changing Twelve's face
value. She does this by entering special machines (addition,
subtraction, multiplication and division) that allow her to combine with
other numbers she has found along the way. Other obstacles can be
overcome by Twelve's changing her face value into a special number such
as five, which allows her to swim.The Kid-Appeal: With lots of
falling debris and a color palate that is predominately black, kids feel
as if they are navigating a dangerous world. Couple this suspenseful
environment with an interesting story, filled with droll humor delivered
by comedian Lucy Montgomery, and the result is a game with a quirky
vibe, similar to that of award-winning World of Goo HD.
Even better is the way that doing math isn't an "add-on," rather it is
the core of the gameplay. Kids solve order-of-operations puzzles to
succeed.

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About Me

Hello, my name is Helge Scherlund and I am the Education Editor and Online Educator of this personal weblog and the founder of eLearning • Computer-Mediated Communication Center.
I have an education in the teaching adults and adult learning from Roskilde University, with Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as specially studied subjects. I am the author of several articles and publications about the use of decision support tools, e-learning and computer-mediated communication. I am a member of The Danish Mathematical Society (DMF), The Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics (DSTS) and an individual member of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Note: Comments published here are purely my own and do not reflect those of my current or future employers or other organizations.